FOUR members of a family, nabbed in a drug bust, were all denied bail on Friday last when they appeared before Magistrate Adela Nagamootoo at New Amsterdam Court in Berbice.
Imran Khan, 36, of Lot 88 Enmore, East Coast Demerara; Naresh Ramjohn, 35, of Lot 54 Stanleytown, New Amsterdam; Sherry Bacchus, 38 and Jennifer Puran, 18, were remanded to prison until April 24.
All the defendants, who pleaded not guilty to trafficking in 550 grammes of cannabis (marijuana), were en route to Enmore from Berbice when the motor vehicle in which they were travelling, with Khan at the heel, was stopped along Stanleytown Public Road on April 8.
A search of the vehicle yielded the narcotic concealed under the front passenger seat occupied by Ramjohn, said Police Inspector Satrohan Dayaram, prosecuting.
The Prosecutor said Bacchus is the common law wife of Khan and Puran is a cousin of Bacchus, with whom she was in the back seat of the hire car.
Defence Counsel Charrandas Persaud, in an unsuccessful application for the quartet to be granted pre-trial liberty, said Bacchus is a mother of six children, the youngest being  one month old.
The lawyer also claimed that two of the younger children, aged one year and one month, were with their mother in the Police holding area, as she has no one to care for them.
The magistrate had indicated her intention to grant bail in the sum of $200,000 each but she did not, on the insistence of the Prosecutor, who said Defence Counsel did not advance any special reason for granting bail.